Edith Barretto Stevens Parsons

Private Collection, Louisiana

Sotheby's, New York, 3 December 2003, lot 38 (consigned by the above)

Acquired from the above by the present owner

Turn-of-the century sculptor Edith Barretto Stevens Parsons is best known for her whimsical bronzes. Parsons trained under artists Daniel Chester French and J.H. Twachtman, gaining early critical approval and membership to the National Sculpture Society for her monumental works. The birth of her two children, however, inspired her to create on a smaller scale intended for homes and gardens. Duck Baby celebrates the everyday joys of nature with unbridled delight. 

Parsons designed the original Duck Baby form for the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition, a world’s fair held in San Francisco to commemorate the completion of the Panama Canal. Her design drew significant praise– as the exposition handbook described, “in the presence of so much that is weighty and powerful, the popularity of Duck Baby is a significant and touching indication of the world’s hunger for what is cheerful and mirth-provoking” (as quoted in Charlotte Streifer Rubinstein, American Women Sculptors, Boston, 1990, p. 162).